Heaven and Hell

When I was in Hell, I existed in a small cell. As anyone might suspect, it was as bright as the sun and nearly as hot. Each day Hell’s heat melted the skin from my bones. The pain was unbearable until I accepted it. I came to realize that pain is about perception. I went inside my pain and felt it to its core. I soaked in it. Pain and I became intimate companions. It served as a comforting blanket on a freezing night. It gave my existence meaning.

Demons also came to torture me—dark, faceless beings exuding fear. Their touch froze my bones even I boiled. They gripped my wrist as gently as lovers as they regarded me with featureless faces. Their gentleness made them all the more horrible. Their gaze brought me to scenes of torture without sensation of motion.
Then the real torment would begin. I will spare the readers the details of these tortures. Suffice to say they were more horrible than language can convey. I begged for the relief of death that never came.

But the time came when I learned to laugh in the demons’ faces when they arrived, and I offered no resistance to their torture. I came to look forward to it. I embraced it with open arms. Pain and pleasure are matters of perception. This was Hell’s great lesson.

God never told me why He condemned me to Hell. I can only speculate. I’ve had ample time to review my life in an attempt to understand why I deserved such a sentence. As far I can tell, I lived a life as upright and ethical as any man could. I remained faithfully married to the same woman for forty-nine years. I held the same position as a professor of Philosophy at a prestigious northeastern university for thirty-five of those years until retiring to pass the rest of my days traveling with my wife and reading all the books I never had time for during my working days. My wife and I had two children who we loved dearly and did our best to parent. My children gave me five grandchildren who I adored as a grandfather should.
But I did not live a perfect life. In my twenties and thirties I drank too much, and was guilty of speaking too harshly to my oldest son from whom I demanded too much. In my work, I was too competitive. I hated to be outdone by anyone, and resented those who proved themselves more talented than I. My intellectual curiosity sometimes gave way to obsession and I might have neglected those closest to me for its sake.

But my wife and I gave our time and money to charities and causes we believed in. We were open-minded people who did our best to treat others as we would have them treat us. In summary, I have found myself to be a good man whose faults were not so much greater than any other.

God could not have seen fit to condemn me for the life I lived. I can only conclude that he did so because I did not believe in Him. I imagined there might exist some divine force beyond the scope of human imagination that set the Universe in motion, but scoffed at the idea of a personal, anthropomorphic god who watched our every deed and judged us when our days were done. I did not believe in the concepts of Heaven or Hell. They did not fit with all that I observed in the Universe. It seemed more likely and rational that after my death I would cease to be in my present form. My body and mind would decompose and dissolve into the Earth.
But after living a full life of eighty-five years, I discovered these beliefs were in error. I was unprepared for Hell. My genteel life had not readied me for its horrors, but in time I came to conquer its horrors through acceptance—to do more than accept its horrors, to celebrate them, to embrace whatever Satan offered with open arms. The demons did their worst, but I turned their pain to pleasure, and begged for more.

I sensed their frustration when they carried me to a mountaintop, and held me over a sheer cliff. With a gesture, a demon set my body ablaze. I could smell the thick stench of my own burning flesh. Another demon lifted my flaming form and threw me over the edge. I fell, blazing and laughing with joy at the glorious pain. Was this truly the worst they had to offer, I asked myself.
For what seemed an eternity, I dropped through the void until the fire had cooked away my skin and blackened my bones. Even then, my marrow boiled and still I reveled in the pain. I felt its sensation to the core, celebrating my mastery over it.

I never struck bottom, but at some point found myself again in my familiar cell disappointed to see the experience had ended.
Eons seemed to pass before I was disturbed again. I existed in my boiling, blinding cell, and gave no thought to any possible future, content in my thoughtlessness. Then my cell door opened. Its heat dissipated and its light dimmed. Beyond the door, I beheld a vision whose reality I did not trust. But it endured even as I stepped through the open door.

A beautiful tropical scene lay before me. A beach of fine white sand bordered a Cerulean sea. The sun warmed my face, and a cool breeze blew through my hair. I found myself shirtless and wearing a pair of white swim trunks, my body as young and agile as it had ever been.

I luxuriated in the feel of the sand beneath my toes and the coolness of the waves as they lapped my ankles. I gazed over the ocean and wondered if God had pardoned me.

Was this Heaven?

Hearing seagulls’ caws, I turned toward them. The sight of the birds flying overhead moved me to tears. This must have been Heaven, but it seemed incomplete to have no one to share it with.

As soon as this thought came, I laughed aloud. I had endured every conceivable torture to emerge on a beach of paradise, but still dared to complain of simple solitude. But God must have heeded my thought because in the distance, a familiar form strode toward me. I recognized her at once. When you share your life with a woman for forty-nine years, you learn to recognize her walk. My heart leapt in my chest and I ran to meet her.

She ran to me as well. Her long, dark hair flowed behind her streamlined and slender body. She wore the same sea-green bikini I remembered from our youth. I wondered if she had endured the same hardships as I since her Earthly death. I wondered if this reward was as much for her as for me.

We embraced. I squeezed her to my body, and the warmth and familiarity of her touch drove away Hell’s horrors in an instant. She hugged me so fiercely she nearly squeezed the breath from me. We dropped to our knees in the shallow surf, overcome with hysterical laughter that dissolved to tears. We held one another until we were like putty in one another’s arms. The sun crept slowly across the sky and still we embraced, not quite trusting the reality of the other’s existence. Several times I attempted to speak, but no words seemed adequate to express the enormity of my joy in finding her here.

The sun fell and was replaced by a night of a bright, full moon and sparkling stars.

“I love you, Carl,” she finally said. “I’ve missed you.”

“I love you too, Mandy,” I tried to say. But still no words came to my lips. We kissed and melted into passionate love making on the crystal sand. When it was done, we slept naked and knew no hunger, pain, or the slightest discomfort. Content, we lay alone in our paradise like Adam and Eve before the serpent. If this was an illusion in some elaborate torture scheme devised by Satan, I did not care.
I was only thankful for the moment while it lasted.

I woke with the feel of the sun on my face the following morning, still embracing my wife. I sniffed the pleasant tinge of saltwater and listened to the rhythmic lapping of breaking waves. I did not open my eyes for a long time, afraid to find its unreality revealed. When I did, I wept to discover the beach to be as perfect as it had been the day before.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said.

“Yes, but not as beautiful as you.”

She laughed. It was an old joke between us.

“What shall we do today?” she asked.

“Whatever we want. I’m up for exploring. How about you?”

She smiled with a wisp of sadness underneath. “That’s you,” she said. “You can’t be content to stay in one place and enjoy just being. You have to see everything, examine everything, understand everything.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “It is my nature.”

“Okay, then. Let’s explore, my love.”

I started to leave the beach, but she kissed me first and thoughts of exploring were momentarily forgotten. I only wanted to explore the familiar shape of her body all over again.

When it was over, I still wished to discover our surroundings. I wanted to know what Heaven was made of. Beyond the shore to the north was a grove of citrus trees, all bearing fruit with such abundance that their limbs were bent to the ground.

“Let’s go there,” I told her. “Let’s see that fruit.”

“It reminds me of the apples in the Garden of Eden,” she said.

I laughed. “Are you serious, Mandy?”

“Well…God hasn’t told us not to eat it, has He? I guess it’s alright.”

“No, He hasn’t given us any instructions that I’m aware of.”

“Did you not think our time in Hell was instruction enough?”

But I did not wish to think of that time. Hell was in the past and I existed in the present. “Let’s go see if that fruit tastes as good as it looks,” I said.
We went to the trees and tasted their fruit. Juicy and delicious beyond description, biting into it was pure ecstasy. We only looked at one another, laughing like children and licking our lips. After we ate our fill, I lacked the will for further exploration. We went back to our place on the beach and slept. Later in the day I woke while my wife still slumbered. Being careful not to wake her, I stood and walked far along the beach alone, surveying my surroundings and letting my thoughts flow. I tried to trust this paradise—but didn’t. Heaven was supposed to be a place of blissful happiness for all eternity. Why then did I feel so uneasy? Why could I not enjoy this beautiful place and the company of the love of my life without tainting it with my own restless thoughts and suspicions? I had once been content in Hell, so why not allow myself to be ecstatic in Heaven?
But I was only being true to my nature. I had been very intellectually curious in life. Shouldn’t my Heaven be tailored to my interests? As I walked along the beach, I noticed a certain sameness of the landscape. The waves broke on the shore in a perfectly rhythmic and unchanging pattern. The sand never varied in its composition or thickness. To the north beyond the beach, the grove of citrus trees appeared to stretch forever like a border, all of their branches bending with the weight of ripe, delicious fruit for as far as the eye could see. I wondered what lay beyond that grove. I thought of how my motivation had been utterly sapped after eating the fruit.

I decided to try again. Leaving the beach, I walked again to the citrus grove. Standing at its edge, I inspected the trees. They were all of a uniform height and thickness, about fifteen feet tall with hundreds of spidery branches full of fruit, intertwining with their neighbors, forming a barrier thick and strong enough to make passage through them very difficult.

The grove appeared to have been designed as a natural fence. I wondered why a man should be discouraged from exploring the confines of his Heaven, but I would not be so easily deterred. Pushing myself through the branches, the fruit’s scent served to deter me more than the branches’ thickness. Only an act of will prevented me from stopping to gorge myself.

With great difficulty, I emerged on the other side of the grove and stared out to see what lay beyond. But as soon as I stood, brightness blinded me. It seemed as if the sun itself resided there. I closed my eyes and covered my face. At the same moment, I felt suddenly ravenous, as if I must eat or die. Angered by this manipulation, I tried to step into the brightness in spite of my hunger pangs. But my foot found no purchase. There was no ground beyond. I stood on the precipice of a void. I forced my eyes open to slits and stared across the valley before me. The ground that must have existed somewhere below was too far to be seen.
Satisfied with my discovery, I returned again through the branches of the grove, still resisting the urge to partake of the inviting fruit. I was determined not to give in to the siren song of their appeal. Whether in Heaven or Hell, I would be a man of free will, not to be manipulated by some higher power.

When I reached the beach again, I rushed back to my wife, wanting to tell her about my discoveries. I was so intent on this goal that I did not immediately notice the voices of children laughing.

Recognition stopped me in my tracks. These were the voices of my children.
I could see them in the distance: small dots of motion darting in and out of the water, their mother joining in their play. Thomas and Annie were here! All my former resentment dropped away, replaced with joy. I sprinted toward them. It was Thomas, always the most observant, who saw me first.

“Daddy!” he called. Then he came running to meet me with Annie following at his heels. I dropped to my knees and gathered them against me, smothering their faces with kisses. They giggled and hugged me back. Mandy stood behind them, smiling at our reunion.

“I woke from our nap and there they were,” Mandy said. “You were gone, replaced by them. I didn’t know what to think.”

“Daddy, this beach is beautiful,” Annie told me. “It’s like Heaven.”

“Yes, it is,” I agreed. I held her at arm’s length and looked at her closely. She looked to be about seven years old. Before my death, she had just turned fifty-eight, an attractive and successful woman with her own psychiatric practice.

“Where were you before you came here today?” I asked.

The question confused her. “I don’t remember,” she said. “I don’t remember anything before today.”

“Neither do I,” Thomas chimed in. “But this is a fun place. I hope we can stay here a long time.”

“What do you make of that?” I asked Mandy.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But why question it? We are here in Heaven with our children. God has been good to us.”

“Yes, He has,” I admitted. But I remembered all the tortures of Hell. “Lately,” I added.

“Where did you go? I was worried.”

“Worried? In Heaven? How could that be?”

But she had no answer.

“I went exploring again.”

I almost told her about forcing my way through the fruit grove to the void of light beyond, but held my tongue. My wife had been as religiously skeptical and as intellectually curious as I in life, but now she had changed.
“Come on, let’s take the children to the fruit trees,” she said.
We walked as a family toward the orchard. I strove to share my wife’s attitude. She accepted this place without questioning it. It should have been easy for me to do the same.

Days passed and we lived as a happy family. Our only sustenance was the citrus fruit, but it more than satisfied us. I thought it strange that we never saw fish or any other creature in the limitless sea. Nor did we see any other life at all besides the ubiquitous flock of seagulls that apparently never soiled this beach with their wastes or had any need to eat at all. Each day was identical to the one before.

One night, I slept and dreamed in vivid detail of the demons’ touch. Before the torture came, I jerked myself awake, waking my wife as well.

“What’s wrong, Carl?” she asked.

I said nothing for a moment, gazing at the multitude of stars in a cloudless sky.
“Talk to me, darling.”

“Tell me about Hell for you,” I said. “Tell me about what you endured there.”

“I don’t remember, Carl. I try not to think of it. We are here now and that is all that matters.”

“Mandy, does this place seem…artificial to you sometimes?”

“Carl, all I feel is happiness. Why can’t you do the same? This is Heaven, for God’s sake.”

“You are right. I just don’t trust it.”

“Go to sleep, Carl. In the morning, you will feel better.”

But I couldn’t sleep and felt no better in the morning.

I would have taken no action in spite of my discontent if my son not been a boy after my own heart.

“Daddy,” he said to me one day in an eager, secretive voice as we sat on the beach staring at the waves. “Can I show you something?”

He stood and grabbed my hand. “We’ll have to walk up the beach. It’s something really neat.”

We walked a couple of hundred yards at the edge of the breaking waves before stopping.

“Do see how the waves hit the beach from where we were to where we’re standing now?” he asked.

I looked behind me, trying to see how he must have seen this perfect, heavenly ocean.

“Yes.” I answered

“Okay, let’s walk down the beach and keep your eye on the waves as we go.”
I smiled as he pulled me along. I knew what he was showing me. I had found a kindred spirit here in Heaven after all. Finally, he stopped again.

“Look,” he said, pointing out to the waves “You see? The waves are exactly the same as they were back there, and all the water from here to the same distance up the beach is all the same as it was from there to here. Then it starts all over again.”
I did not wish to spoil his enthusiasm by telling him I already knew.

“My God, Thomas. You’re right. That’s amazing.”

He smiled, basking in my praise.

“Let’s go up the beach some more and count the steps before it repeats again. I bet it’s the same distance every time.”

“I bet it is, too,” he said. “How far does the beach go? Do you think we could walk to the end of it?”

“I don’t know, Thomas. Tomorrow, we should find out. Just the two of us.”

“Okay, Dad. That would be awesome.”

That night, he told his mother about our plans. She was pleased and excited by the idea.

“I hope the two of you have lots of fun!” she said. But I didn’t miss the suspicious glance she flashed at me over our son’s head.

The next morning, Thomas and I began our quest. We didn’t know how long we would be gone. I would return whenever he was ready. As long as the fruit grove to the north of us persisted, we didn’t have to worry about rations. I wondered if it was
possible to suffer from thirst or starvation here. I had never experienced either of these sensations thus far except when I passed through the grove. I had a theory of where our beach-walk would lead, but did not tell my son. We had walked for half a day when he asked, “Where do you think this will take us? It’s the same pattern over and over. It gets boring after awhile. It has to change sometime doesn’t it?”

“One would think so.”

We walked for seven days. My son never complained, and I loved him for his adventurous nature. For him, the joy of exploration outweighed the desire to return to the comfort of his mother and sister. Around midday on the final day of our walk, my theory proved correct. Thomas spotted them first.

“Look!” he said, when we were still too far away to discern their faces. “There’s someone on the beach up there.”

“Yes. I see her too.” I tried to sound surprised, but knew my voice gave away my expectation.

“Hey, and there’s someone else!” We watched as a smaller figure splashed into the water next to the adult one. We moved closer.

He stopped in his tracks. “That’s Mom and Annie,” he said. “But…how could it be? We didn’t turn back. We just walked in the same direction.”

I didn’t answer. I knew he would work it out on his own.

“Did we just walk in a big circle?” He sounded angry. “Did you know it would be like this the whole time? Is this all there is to this world?”

“I suspected, but didn’t know for sure.” I held out my arms. “I think this is it, son. What you see is what you’ve got.”

For a moment, he was crestfallen and then suddenly hopeful. He turned from me and gazed toward the ocean. “What’s out there?” He pointed towards the horizon.

“I don’t know. This might be Heaven, but none of us are able to walk on water.”

“We should find out. Let’s see how far the ocean goes.”

“Sure, let’s do it, son. Let’s find out what’s out there.”

“What about that way?” he asked, pointing toward the fruit trees. “What’s past that grove?”

“That’s something I can show you.”

“Really? Let’s go see it.”

Before we could go, little Annie came running towards us, ecstatic that we had returned. Our exploring would have to wait for another day. Annie hugged us both and led us back to her mother. She kissed me, but seemed distant.

“What did you boys discover?” she asked.

“That Heaven is a small world,” I said.

Mandy laughed. “It may be,” she said. “But it is our world. I would never trade it for another.”

“No…,” Thomas said. “It should be bigger.”

The next morning, drops of water against my head woke me. Thomas stood over me, soaking wet and excited.

“Dad,” he said. “Guess what? Last night I swam as far as I could into the ocean to see where it would go. I swam until I could go no further even though I couldn’t see what was stopping me. It seemed like there was an invisible wall. The water looks like it goes on forever, but it’s like when we walked around the beach. You can only go so far.”

“I’m not surprised, Thomas. God does not want us to move beyond our boundaries.”
He was about to answer when my wife interrupted.

“Thomas…why are you all wet?” she asked.

“I went swimming to see how far the water went.”

“What? You shouldn’t have. It’s dangerous. You could have drowned.”

“No, I couldn’t have. It’s not that far, Mom. It looks like a long way, but it’s really not. That’s what I was just telling Dad.”

“It’s still too far for a little boy to swim. Promise me you won’t try that again.”
“Okay, Mom,” he said, reluctantly. Shrugging his shoulders, he went to wake his sister.

“Do you really think he could drown in Heaven, Mandy?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But I still don’t understand why the two of you have to go around investigating everything. It’s exasperating.”

“It’s just our nature, Mandy.”

“God has provided a wonderful place for us and I wouldn’t want Him to take it away because we can’t let things be.”

“I don’t understand why you trust Him so much. This is the same God who sent us to Hell. We were good, decent people, Mandy. We didn’t deserve to go to Hell. You know that. We didn’t deserve the tortures we suffered there.”

“Carl, He sent us to Hell because we didn’t believe in Him. You know that.”

“What kind of God sends you to Hell just because you don’t believe in him? Is that really so great a sin? If He’d made Himself known a little more, I would have believed in Him.”

“We should have had faith, Carl. We thought we were so smart, didn’t we? We thought people with faith were the ignorant ones. Can’t you appreciate the irony?”

“Maybe. But this Heaven is boring to me. If God understood our true natures, then He would understand that my son and I enjoy exploring and understanding the world around us. Is that too much to ask?”

“I hope not, Carl. For your sake and Thomas’s. I certainly hope not.”

“Dad,” Thomas called. “Are you going to show me what’s past the fruit grove today? I really want to see.”

My wife flashed me a forbidding look. I had no wish to quarrel in Heaven. I hoped her mood would change in time.

“We’ll have to do that another day, Thomas. Your mother wants us to spend the day together as a family.”

“Okay,” Thomas said. He shook off his disappointment and went to play with his sister.

Mandy was proud of me. I was rewarded for my restraint with the warmest kiss she had offered in quite awhile. We passed the day together talking on the beach, and it occurred to me that she might be right. Why should we spend our time investigating and analyzing this Heaven that God had made for us? What was really to be gained by it? I had willed myself to be content in Hell in spite of a life of torment there. What then prevented me from passing my days in Heaven with the same sense of contentment? The day passed and my wife and I made love after the children had gone to sleep. There was the sense between us as we drifted to sleep that a crisis between us had passed.

In the morning, I opened my eyes and stared to see another perfect blue sky and hear the same familiar caw of seagulls that greeted me at this time every day. For a moment the redundancy irritated me, but then I knew it didn’t matter. I lived in a beautiful place with the people I loved most. We could live here forever, living our lives in perfect contentment. I allowed my mind to be at ease, soaking in the familiar sounds and smells of this place. At some point, I drifted off to sleep again until my daughter’s voice roused me.

“Daddy, do you know where Thomas is?”

“I don’t know. He probably went exploring down the beach somewhere. You know how he is.”

“Yeah, but he’s been gone a long time. He got up in the middle of the night again while everyone was sleeping and I haven’t seen him since.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No, he didn’t say. He just got up and left. He thought I was sleeping.”

“Which way did he go?” Mandy asked.

“That way,” Annie answered. She pointed toward the fruit grove.

“Oh no,” Mandy said. “Get up, Carl. We have to find him.”

Take me to see what’s past the orange grove, he asked me. But I didn’t take him. I had decided at that moment to abandon my wrong-minded need to investigate everything and instead to be content with the Heaven God had made for us. Now, I regretted this decision. If I’d taken him, his curiosity could have been satisfied. My palms were sweaty with anxiety. But surely there was no real danger. This was Heaven. What danger could really exist here? I spotted Thomas’s footprints leading toward the grove, and followed them.

“I’ll find him,” I said.

His prints were easy to follow. He’d pushed past the thick branches to the brink of the bright void beyond. The fruit’s siren song had not succeeded in stopping him.

“Thomas!” I called. My heart began to pound in spite of myself.

I pushed past the orchard myself to be blinded again by the brightness of the void beyond. Trying to shield my eyes, I called him with all the strength in my lungs.

“Thomas! Where are you?”

But no answer came. I scanned the grove for the slightest movement or sign of my lost son, but saw no one. Hopelessly, I searched the ground for any sign of his passage. In a moment, I spotted what I was looking for. The ground beyond the fruit grove was oddly muddy in spite of the fact that rain had never fallen here. His small footprints were visible there. I followed them with my eyes to the edge of the precipice. There they stopped, two small feet at the edge of existence. In my mind’s eye I could see him standing there as he surveyed the brilliant valley before him in amazement. Finally, he must have thought. Something that inspired wonder. Beyond the standing prints, there was a final step that brought him to the brink.

With a sinking heart, I searched for return steps, but there were none. My brain refused to comprehend the meaning of this for a moment, but then understanding forced its way through. My son had leaped into the void. My son, who had never known pain or feared danger in this world, had jumped into a bottomless valley to understand it more fully. I stepped in his footprints to see it as he had in that moment. I strove to understand this supposed Heaven as he had, and it was not a difficult task. Thomas and I were of the same genes and inclinations. Only experience separated our natures. I should have warned him of this danger when he had asked to come here with me yesterday. But I had refused him. So he had followed his own curious nature without my guidance. I was to blame for his actions. I dropped to my knees and wept. I had learned to cope with all the tortures of Hell, but could not bear the loss of my son in Heaven. My wife found me weeping.
“You have caused God to take him from us,” she said. “Maybe now you will have the decency to cease your meddling. Hell was not enough to change you. God had to punish you in Heaven as well.”

Her words turned my grief to anger.

“In life, I did not believe in God,” I told her. “Now I do not doubt His existence, but He is a hateful God that I refuse to kowtow to for another moment.”

“He should have left you in Hell!” she said. “You don’t deserve what He has given us here. He takes your son to teach you a lesson and still you cry about his methods. From now on, I want you to stay away from my daughter and I. Get far away from us so I never have to see your blasphemous face.”

“That’s fine with me. You are not the wife I loved in life anyway. She has been replaced by a sanctimonious bitch I want no part of.”

She covered her face with her hands and stalked through the fruit grove, eating fruit from the branches as she went.

“Wait!” I called. “I didn’t mean that.”

I chased after her.

“Get away from me!” she said through tears, slapping my hand away. She ran away from me, scooping Annie up along the way.

“Your father has killed your brother,” my wife told her. “We don’t want to see him any more.”

Annie burst into tears as my wife dragged her away. I emerged from the grove behind them and watched them go. Heartbroken, I watched them until they were out of sight. Then I walked the beach alone, feeling more desolate than I ever had in Hell. I moved my feet across the sand until after nightfall. Finally, I ceased moving and sat, wondering if a boy could truly die in Heaven or if he had only moved to another place to explore. I tried not to wish to hear his voice calling from far down the beach, running with all of his youthful enthusiasm to tell me about his latest discovery. Tears fell onto the uniform grains of sand at my feet. They started slowly, but gained strength until heaving sobs overcame me. I wept until a fitful sleep claimed me.

My son came in the night. I did not know if his presence was a dream or reality. He came to me shining as brightly as the void into which he had leapt. I tried to gaze at him, but his brilliance blinded me. He stood within my reach, but I was afraid to touch him. I wondered if his fall had transformed him into God’s angel. After a long moment of silence, he spoke.

“Dad, I had to see what was at the bottom of the bright pit past the fruit orchard. I didn’t know it would be so far to the bottom. I didn’t know it would make me so shiny.”

“What did you find at the bottom, Thomas? Did you see God?”

Thomas shook his shining head.

“I learned the truth as I dropped, Dad. I don’t even remember reaching the bottom. I fell into the light and everything was still. Even time didn’t move any more. But there was something that showed me things and then I found myself on the beach next to you, shining like I am now with all of this knowledge in my head.”

“What kind of knowledge, Thomas?”

He was silent again. I waited him out.

“Dad, all of this exists because of you,” he finally said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this beach, the ocean, the seagulls, the sand, the fruit orchard, the pit beyond it, even me, Mom, and Annie are here because of you. God didn’t make it. It was you.

“That can’t be true. I don’t believe that. The world did not revolve around me, and neither does Heaven and Hell.”

“It’s true, Dad. You made all of it with your own mind. Maybe God allowed you to create it, but it was you who did the creating.”

I only stared at him, wondering if what he said could possibly be true.
“Is all of this a dream then?” I asked.

“It depends on how you define a dream, Dad.”
Accepting his words, I closed my eyes, and emptied my mind in a way I had not since the day of my death. Was all that I’d endured since a creation of my own mind, as whimsical and as unsubstantial as a racing thought? I opened my eyes. Smiling, I hugged my son, embracing his brightness, and merging myself within it. Our physical bodies dissipated into an existence too vast and wonderful to be my imagination or any incarnation of a man-made God. Peace flowed through me, and together we explored Heaven for all eternity as it stretched before us forever.